As Canadians, we’re known around the world for many things – our hockey, our humour, our (at times) inclement weather. But what you may not know is that here in the heart of Montreal, we are home to one-third of Google’s global anti-malware team – leading security engineers who help about 1 billion people worldwide stay safe on the web.

For the last six years, our engineers in Montreal have been working to combat two of the biggest online threats: malicious software (or malware) that can take control of your computer, and phishing scams that try to trick you into sharing passwords or other personal information.

Today, Google launched a new section on our Transparency Report that will shed more light on the scale and sources of these global threats. Now, when we report that we find up to 10,000 unsafe sites per day, you can see what this really means: how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted, and how quickly some websites are reinfected when vulnerabilities persist.

The work we do to identify bad sites and show warnings to users is shared with other developers and browsers, including Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. So wherever you may be in the world, if you see one the tens of millions of warnings we show each week, stay safe, surf somewhere else, and think of Montreal!

For more information, read about the new Safe Browsing section of the Transparency Report on the Official Google Blog.Posted by Fabrice Jaubert, Security Engineer, Google Canada

We are excited to begin recruiting for our 2nd Annual Google Canada Student Ambassador Program! If you are thrilled by new technology, enthusiastic about Google, and involved in your school community, you should apply now for this great opportunity to act as the liaison between Google and your university.

Applications are now open! The deadline is this Sunday, July 7, 2013. Apply now.

Please reach out to canada_university_program@google.com with any questions.

This embeddable map shows evacuation zones, emergency shelter locations, public alerts, traffic conditions, and more. With help from the City of Calgary, Province of Alberta, CBC News and several local communities, the map uses open data to provide important information for people in affected areas.

We created the Google Crisis Map to help people find and use critical emergency information when they need it most.

See below for more information on embedding this map for your use, and keep an eye on the crisis map as we continue to add new information.

Our thoughts remain with everyone in Alberta affected by these floods, and with the many officials and first responders throughout the province whose resilience has united us all and will guide the recovery effort.

What makes an ad great? Simple: people choose to watch it. On YouTube, we see this more and more - Canadians are opting to view and share content they're passionate about, be it a music video, a favorite show, or an ad. Each month, the YouTube Ads Leaderboard for Canada to will celebrate those ads that most moved Canadians. The Leaderboard is compiled using some of YouTube’s strongest signals of viewer choice – number of views, percentage of organic views, and view rate (how much of an ad people choose to watch).

YouTube Ads Leaderboard for Canada (Click for full Leaderboard)

As you can see, Canadians chose ads of all stripes – long form and short, across a variety of brands, with some adapted from TV spots and some built specifically for YouTube. Some of these ads are still seeing hundreds of thousands of views, embeds, and shares many months after the initial upload, a testament to your passionate activity on YouTube and the stickiness of great brand content.

We’re particularly excited to see a Canadian ad top the list: Visa Canada’s “A Brief History of Smallenfreuden”. With Canada’s recent success at the Cannes Lions, there clearly is a wealth of creative talent in this country and a growing willingness for Canadian marketers and brands to embrace the opportunities online. We hope the Leaderboard inspires more Canadian marketers and agencies to develop entertaining and engaging content with online video.

For additional coverage of the YouTube Ads Leaderboard for Canada, please visit our media partner Marketing magazine. And stay tuned throughout the year as we recognize new ads you love each month. We can’t wait to see what you will choose!

Google Drive lets you store and access your files anywhere -- on the web, your computer, your phone, or on the go. Whether you’re presenting slides in a boardroom in São Paulo or negotiating a Japanese contract in Tokyo, Google Drive speaks your language: 65 of them, to be exact, with the addition of 18 new ones today:

Last week Google announced the regional finalists for Google Science Fair. The Google Science Fair is the largest online science fair in the world, offering students the opportunity to pursue their interest in science and technology. All they need is an idea, and this year’s theme was “It’s your turn to change the world”. Congratulations to the Regional Finalists from Canada!

Young people across Canada have made significant contributions to solving some of today’s greatest challenges. Through the Google Science Fair we want to support and foster the next generation of scientists and engineers.

An extended congratulations to Ann Makosinski from British Columbia who was also shortlisted as a finalist for the Science in Action Award.

When we talk about natural resources that fuel the world, the conversation usually turns to gas and minerals, or sun and wind.

But it’s hard to miss the highest potential resource all around us – the 3.5 billion girls and women around the world.

Today, in Moscow, Russia, 21 young women are representing their G20 countries at the annual G(irls)20 Summit to tackle the economic challenges facing our global community around the themes of jobs, growth and investment.

Held in advance of the official G20 Leaders Summit, the Summit brings together these delegates over the next four days to discuss strategies for sustainability, youth employment, and achieving the full participation of women in the economy through the eradication of early forced marriage, alongside leading figures like Arianna Huffington, Lauren Bush Lauren and Jennifer Buffett.

Technology plays a big part in empowering young women across the globe – accelerating change, connecting communities, and providing new platforms for education and outreach. At Google, we’re proud to have been a partner of the G(irls)20 Summit over the past four years, and delighted this year to be hosting the Summit at Google Moscow, where for the first time, delegates to the Summit will be using Google Hangouts to connect with guest speakers from around the world.

As G8 countries at the Leaders Summit in Northern Ireland this week turn their attention to using open data in the public domain to drive innovation and accountability, it’s time to catch up with Canadian experts on eagerly-anticipated advances in Canada’s open data approach.

For a first-hand look at Canada’s latest achievements in open data and open government, on Tuesday, June 18 at 2:00 PM EST, join Treasury Board PresidentTony Clement in conversation with The Globe and Mail’sHannah Sung for a Google Hangout with guests:

Today we’re adding images from more than 1,000 locations around the world to Google Maps, making it more comprehensive and useful for you. From historical landmarks to sports stadiums, these panoramic photos available via Street View can help you ease into vacation mode with just a few simple clicks. Below are highlights from Asia, Europe, Latin America, the U.S. and Canada that you can use to preview a vacation spot, to plot your next hiking route or just to become an armchair explorer from wherever you may be: Go from city life to wildlife park in Singapore:
Planning on stopping by Singapore this summer? You can now explore more of the island’s diverse landscapes right from Google Maps. To get a taste of modern city life in Singapore, simply search for Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade and Fullerton Heritage Promenade and use Street View to explore the city’s popular bay front and bay skyline. If you’re planning to travel with family or are simply an animal lover at heart, you can also now go on a virtual adventure to the Singapore Zoo.

Discover some of Europe’s riches:
While you’re basking in Seville’s sun and sampling its famous oranges, check out the stunning Seville Cathedral against the bright blue Spanish sky. It’s the largest Gothic cathedral (and third largest church) in the world and served as a trading hub and bastion of the city’s wealth in the years following the Reconquista in the 13th century. Or maybe take a virtual sightseeing trip down the serene canals of Copenhagen, Denmark this summer. From the boat you can see cultural landmarks like the Royal Opera and Theater Houses and even the sculpture of The Little Mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairytale.

Take a pilgrimage to Latin America:
Take a virtual journey to Brazil’s Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida, the most visited Marian shrine in the world. You can also visit Brazil’s Vila Belmiro stadium, home to Santos Soccer Club and of past and present phenoms, Pelé and Neymar. Experience Bosque de Chapultepec (Chapultepec Park), a natural oasis in the middle of Mexico City and one of the largest city parks in the Western Hemisphere. Or get ready for the slopes with a preview of Valle Nevada Resort, one Chile’s hottest ski resorts just a few miles outside of Santiago.

Take a trip down memory lane in the US:
Visit some of the nation’s historic landmarks with a road trip down the East Coast. Stops include The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut where one of America’s greatest authors and his family lived from 1874 to 1891; the Isaac Bell House in Newport, Rhode Island built in 1883 for the famous cotton broker and investor; and the Cape Henry Lighthouse in Virginia, which has guarded the Chesapeake Bay since 1792. Finally, explore the historic Vermont State House where for over 150 years citizen legislators have gathered every winter to debate the laws of Vermont.

Whether you’re hitting the slopes in South America or soaking up the summer sunshine north of the equator, we hope you enjoy exploring the world! To see this imagery and experience it through Street View, download the Google Maps app for Android or iPhone today.

My friends and I used to play videogames all the time, squashed together on the couch, engaged in structured intellectual discourse about exactly how badly we were going to destroy each other. Now that we live spread out around the world, it’s a bit harder to dance in each other’s faces and yell “booyah!” every time we win a game. Enter: Cube Slam.

Cube Slam is a video game that you can play face-to-face against your friends. It’s a Chrome Experiment built using WebRTC, an open web technology that lets you video chat right in the browser without installing any plug-ins. That means you can quickly and easily play Cube Slam with your friends, no matter where they are in the world, just by sharing a link.

To win Cube Slam, hit the cube against your friend’s screen three times until the screen explodes. Shields, obstacles, and gravity fields change with every new level, and you can unlock power-ups including fireballs, lasers, multi-balls, mirrored controls, bulletproof shields, fog, ghost balls, time bombs, resized paddles, extra lives and death balls––though you might want to avoid the death balls. If none of your friends are online, you can always play against Bob the Bear and see what level you can reach. If you install the Cube Slam app, you can even play Bob when you’re offline.

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Cube Slam’s graphics are rendered in WebGL and CSS 3D, and its custom soundtrack is delivered dynamically through Web Audio. WebRTC, which enables the two-person game, is available on desktop Chrome and Chrome OS, and will be available on mobile later this year. In the meantime, you can play Cube Slam against Bob the Bear on your phone or tablet. To learn more about what’s going on under the hood, see our technology page and Chromium blog post.
Play a friend. Play a bear. Have fun!

The Hudson’s Bay Company may be the oldest commercial corporation in North America, but when it comes to digital, its focus is on the future. Like many savvy retailers, HBC has realized that having an online presence has become more and more important to overall sales. As consumers increasingly shop across multiple channels, retailers need to adjust how they think about ROI to properly account for how and where consumers shop.

With 93% of Canadians using online search to research products and services, yet only 1% of retails sales occurring online in Canada, many consumers are using the Internet as a trusted research tool prior to purchasing goods in a store. HBC wanted to understand the impact of online search advertising dollars on in-store sales, and worked with Google to run the first online to store experiment in Canada

Today at the Store Conference, we presented the results of the experiment, which were among the strongest we have seen. For every $1 spent in online search advertising, HBC realized $14.40 in in-store sales, representing a 2.6% lift in overall store sales. By comparison, in the more than 50 online to store experiments we have run in the U.S., we have typically seen between a 1.6% - 2% overall store sales lift.

According to Christina Callas, HBC’s Senior Vice-President of eCommerce and Digital Marketing, “This further proves that Google paid search is not only an effective online acquisition vehicle, but also an important in-store driver.” She adds, “We need to be there where our customers are looking and researching the products we sell. As a marketer, paid search is one of the most qualified digital marketing buys you can make.”

For more information on how brands are using online digital to drive sales, visit www.google.ca/think.

From your own backyard all the way to Mount Everest, Google Maps and Google Earth are here to help you explore the world. You can learn to harness the world’s most comprehensive and accurate mapping tools by registering for Mapping with Google.

Mapping with Google is a self-paced, online course developed to help you better navigate the world around you by improving your use of the new Google Maps, Maps Engine Lite, and Google Earth. All registrants will receive an invitation to preview the new Google Maps.

Through a combination of video and text lessons, activities, and projects, you’ll learn to do much more than look up directions or find your house from outer space. Tell a story of your favorite locations with rich 3D imagery, or plot sights to see on your upcoming trip and share with your travel buddies. During the course, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from Google experts and collaborate with a worldwide community of participants, via Google+ Hangouts and a course forum.

Mapping with Google will be offered from June 10 - June 24, and you can choose whether to explore the features of Google Maps, Google Earth, or both. In addition, you’ll have the option to complete a project, applying the skills you’ve learned to earn a certificate. Visit g.co/mappingcourse to learn more and register today.

The world is a big place, we like to think that you can make it a bit more manageable and adventurous with Google’s mapping tools.